


Panic Gen Abandoned Big Bang

by fictionalaspect



Series: Unfinished, Abandoned, Snippets, Bits and Pieces [4]
Category: Bandom, Panic At The Disco
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Doctor Who-ish, Fluff, Gen, Humor, TARDIS - Freeform, Time Travel, Timey-Wimey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-15
Updated: 2012-01-15
Packaged: 2017-10-29 13:57:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/320659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictionalaspect/pseuds/fictionalaspect
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brendon is a pizza delivery boy who stumbles upon some very odd customers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Panic Gen Abandoned Big Bang

**Author's Note:**

> I still really like this story, and I wish I hadn't run out of steam when I realized that the first 10,000 words were essentially the prologue to a fic that would have ended up at something like 100k. It can be read as pre-GSF if you like, or pre-any panic pairing, since I hadn't decided what the pairing was going to be by the time I abandoned it. It's not quite a Doctor Who AU, but it's close.

Brendon is a go, go, go sort of guy. He has plans, okay? Brendon has visions for the future. Brendon wants so many things sometimes they get all jumbled up inside, but he's going to get out of Vegas. He wants a better apartment, one with large picture windows and a deck in the back. Fuck it, Brendon wants a house. A whole house to himself, where he can walk around naked and drink coffee and laze around with his guitars and no one will call the cops on him for not having blinds (fuck you, across-the-street neighbor). Brendon wants to learn how to surf and he wants to be a musician and there's nothing stopping him except the minor detail of the one hundred thirty-seven dollar and sixty-two cent balance in his checking account.

"That," Brendon says grandly, setting his coffee down for maximum impact. " _That_ is why I got a second job." It's 8:59 in the morning, and he and Brent are crammed into the back of the lecture hall where, in one minute, their Introductory Statistics class will start. Brent looks unimpressed, but maybe he's just running low on caffeine.

"You already have a job," Brent says. "You work all the time, dude." He winces as some dude elbows him in the shoulder as he's setting his bags down. The community college has those stupid little desk-chairs that are designed for like, grade school students and not actual people.

"I got weekends off," Brendon tells him. He takes another sip of his coffee. "They hired some high school kids, they want to work weekends, I don't. It's perfect." Brendon very carefully doesn't think about his manager's complete lack of interest in his smoothie-making career, the way she'd just waved her hand when Brendon asked. She doesn't know true talent when she sees it.

(It's not that he's bad at making smoothies. Brendon is, in fact, awesome at making smoothies. It's just that occasionally they tend to be a little...overwhelming. Brendon understands that some people, you know, when they come in and order a smoothie they want it to be all relaxing, just sip on the straw and enjoy the slightly-frozen fruit mixture.

Brendon understands this. He just doesn't _agree._ )

"So you're going to deliver pizza?" Brent says. "I mean. If you wanted to make money, there are better ways. You should go to bartending school."

"Nah," Brendon says. He's digging in his backpack for a pen, because the professor is down on the podium shuffling through papers and looking like she's getting ready to start. He has to stick his whole face down there and his voice comes out muffled. He holds one hand on his glasses so they don't fall off. "I'm going to be the most awesome pizza delivery boy ever. You'll see."

Brent nods and yawns out, "Go get 'em, tiger."

—

His first day—well, night—on the job, Brendon works eight hours for seven dollars and seventy-five cents an hour and brings home seventy-three dollars in tips. It adds up to a grand total of one hundred and thirty-five dollars, even if he won't see sixty-two of those dollars for another week and a half.

It's awesome.

Shane, the shift manager, tells him not to get used to it. He tells Brendon that it's a Friday, and the semester just started, so they're kind of getting slammed at the moment. Brendon doesn't listen. He's too busy counting the bills in his hand with a slightly shocked expression.

Shane pats him on the shoulder and wanders off towards the back, where he's pulling dough out of the mixer and weighing it out into balls. Brendon has never actually considered all the steps involved in making pizza, but he'd gotten a quick crash course before the rush started, a "here is where everything is, if we get slammed I'll need you to help pull pizzas from the oven, try not to burn yourself too badly" sort of talk. Shane can also do the spinny-flippy thing with the dough, where he tosses it up into the air and then catches it with his fist. Brendon is so impressed by the spinny-flippy thing. He's idly considering picking up a weeknight shift, just so he can pester Shane into teaching him.

Shane sends him home with free pizza slices ("Take them, they'll just go to waste") and Brendon sits in his mini-van and eats them loudly and obnoxiously. They're good, because they're real pizza, not that frozen shit they sell at Pizza Hut. But they're _delicious_ , because they're free.

—

His second night on the job, Brendon gets drunkenly invited to three house parties by kids he vaguely remembers from high school. It's kind of awkward; Brendon knows he's _that_ guy, because while everyone seems to recognize him, no one can actually remember his name. He gets called Brandon at the first house, Bill at Delta Omega Chi, and Jason at the third. He waves off all the invites and gets back in his car and goes to take more deliveries.

His last house of the night is way out in the suburbs, in a neighborhood that Brendon barely knows. He gets lost twice, and by the time he finds the right cul-de-sac and pulls up in front of the house it's nearly one am. Brendon sticks his hand inside the pizza-warmer-thing, and winces a little when he feels the pizza's only lukewarm. He thinks maybe if they complain he'll just give it to them for free, take it out of his tips. The drunk kids at the last party tipped him almost as much again as their order.

The house doesn't have any outside lights on. Brendon frowns, and checks the receipt again, but it's definitely the right address. The houses on either side are spilling sharp slashes of light through the bushes surrounding the front door, and onto the metal "47" placed high above the old-fashioned metal mailbox. Brendon shrugs and pulls the pizza out, noticing as he gets closer that a thin line of light is spilling out from the sides of all the windows, as though heavy shades have been pulled down in every room.

He knocks on the door with one hand, juggling the pizza and the receipt with the other. He knocks twice before someone answers the door, and when they do the light is practically blinding.

The guy standing in the doorway is tall and thin, with brown hair and very shiny shoes. He looks extremely confused. He stares at Brendon for a moment with wide eyes, and then seems to get a hold of himself.

"This is number fourty-seven, right?" Brendon says, sighing inwardly. Great. He just wasted ten minutes delivering pizza to the wrong house.

"No," the guy says. "Actually, wait—" He leans around Brendon to peer at the front of his house. "Yes," the guy says. "Sorry. I forget, sometimes."

"Right," Brendon says. "Okay. Here's your pizza."

"I didn't order pizza," the guy says, still confused. "Um—oh, wait. Maybe it's my roommate's. I'll go get him." He lopes off, closing the door, and Brendon considers how bad it would be to just set the pizza down on the stoop and fake the signature. They've already paid with a credit card; he doubts anyone's going to look at the receipt twice.

He's still debating his options when the door opens again. This time, it's a tall blondish guy with a slightly scruffy beard. He's holding a beer in one hand. His eyes widen when he sees Brendon; Brendon wonders how hard it is to forget you ordered pizza, seriously.

"Sorry about that," the guy says, after a beat, shaking his head and waving a little with his beer to emphasis his point. "Ryan's kind of, uh. He's a little strange."

"Yeah, sure," Brendon says. "Don't worry about it. Not the weirdest thing I've seen tonight." The guy—Ryan—probably _was_ the strangest person he'd had to deal with, but there seems to be no point in bad-mouthing him to Tall Blonde Dude. They're obviously friends, from the way the guy smiles fondly when he talks about him.

"So, um," the guy says after a beat, when they're just sort of standing there awkwardly. "Pizza?"

"Oh! Yeah, sorry, been a long night," Brendon mumbles. "Um, you need to sign here—"

"Sure," the guy says, and frowns at the beer in his hand when Brendon hands him the receipt and a pen. He looks around in the hallway, as though an end table will materialize unaided.

"Do you want me to—hold your beer?" Brendon asks, after a few moments of watching Tall Blonde Dude try to figure out the complexities of having only two hands. He must be drunker than he looks. Brendon is getting to be A+ at delivering pizza to drunk people.

"That would be awesome," the guy says, and hands it over. Brendon peers at the label. It's some imported brand he's never heard of. He's just about to open his mouth to ask when there's a movement in the doorway behind Tall Blonde Dude. At the same time, he fumbles his pen, dropping it onto the floor. When he bends down to pick it up Brendon has a clear, unobstructed view into the house.

Standing maybe six feet behind him, there's a guy who looks _identical_ to the one in the doorway. Creepily so, except they're not dressed the same. Brendon thinks _oh shit, twins?_

The guy in the doorway straightens up, and hands Brendon back the receipt and the pen. Brendon hands over the beer, and then the pizza, and as he's doing so he says casually "Man, I always wanted a twin. But I bet people say that to you guys all the time."

"What?" the guy says.

"You're—" Brendon says, and gestures in the direction of the second guy. He's just kind of standing there, waiting. He's oddly dressed for 1am in the morning on a Saturday—suit and tie, crisp iron-lines in his pants, wing-tip shoes—but maybe he just got back from a party, or something. "You guys look exactly alike. It's amazing."

"Oh, him?" the guy in the doorway says. "Nah. He's just my clone." He waves his beer gaily at Brendon as he closes the door, a farewell salute.

Brendon stares at the door for a moment after it closes.

"Huh," he says out loud, and gets back in his car.

—

"What rhymes with clone," Brendon wonders out loud, tapping his pencil against the desk. He's been thinking about it ever since Saturday. There's no way that's what the guy said, so he must have misheard.

"Why are you always so awake in the mornings," Brent mumbles into his latte. "It's fucking unnatural."

"It's my secret superpower," Brendon says. "Rome? No, fuck, that doesn't work."

"Why—you know what, I don't want to know, do I," Brent says.

"Probably not," Brendon agrees gamely. "I wonder if—I'd say it was another language, maybe, but he didn't have an accent."

"Not that I have any fucking clue what you're talking about," Brent says. "But you can speak another language and still speak English without an accent. They're not mutually exclusive."

"Shit, I'm going to need a computer," Brendon says.

"Okay," Brent says, and turns to face him. "Okay. I wasn't going to ask, but now I'm actually curious. What the hell are you talking about?"

"I delivered pizza to this guy, right," Brendon says. "And whatever, they were kind of weird dudes, but not like, creepy-weird, just harmless-weird. And so I'm talking to this guy and holding his beer while he signs the receipt—"

"You hold people's beers?" Brent says.

"Sometimes," Brendon says. "Drunk people get confused really easily. Anyway, I see this guy standing behind him and they're exactly alike. Fucking identical. And I was like oh, hey, you know, I always wanted a twin—"

"Why would you want a twin?" Brent says. "Dude. I wouldn't want a twin."

"The world always needs more Brendon Urie," Brendon says. "So then he's like oh, no, that's my clone. Except there's no fucking way that's what he said, so I'm trying to figure it out. It's just been bugging me."

"Huh," Brent says. "Weird."

"Totally weird," Brendon agrees. "Because, I mean. There's no way."

"I guess," Brent shrugs. "Maybe he was serious. _In Vino Veritas_ , all that shit."

"Um, they cloned a sheep and everyone freaked out," Brendon says. "If someone was cloning humans, I think we'd know."

"That's what they want you to think," Brent says, totally deadpan.

"You're fucking with me," Brendon says, after a long pause. There's just no way.

"Totally," Brent says. He swigs down the last of his coffee. "But I almost had you there, for a second."

—

It's not that Brendon isn't aware he's being really creepy.

He is. Oh, yeah, he is. This is pushing it a little, even for him. It's just that—god, he's so curious. And the guy's name and address is right there, in the computer at work and maybe then he can google him and figure out if he's really making clones in his basement.

Because, because _shit_. That would be so _cool_.

Brendon's scanning last Saturday's orders in the three pm dead time on Friday afternoon when Shane pops up behind him and Jesus fuck, warn a guy.

"Is that my username?" Shane says, peering over Brendon's shoulder. He's frowning a little, a smear of flour high on his cheek. "What are you doing, dude?"

"Um," Brendon says, his face reddening. He's so busted. There is no explanation for this that doesn't make him sound like a stalker.

Shane looks at him for a long moment, then cracks up laughing. Brendon continues to stand there, one hand on the grimy computer mouse covered in dried pizza sauce.

"What?" Brendon says, finally, and Shane snickers a little to himself. He wipes at his face and only succeeds in adding more flour.

"It's like, baby's first time," Shane says, grinning. "You got a hot one, didn't you? Some smoking hot chick answered the door and you're trying to figure out her name so you can oh-so-smoothly introduce yourself."

"No," Brendon says. "Yes. Maybe." He doesn't correct the implied pronoun in Shane's statement.

"You're not the first one," Shane says. "But you have to promise to tell us if you actually hook up with her, so we can all high-five you."

"Uh, sure," Brendon says, still a little off balance. It's all very weirdly frat-boy, made all the weirder by the fact that Shane's sort of the picture of domesticity with his tiny, adorable dogs and adorable girlfriend and the hand-knit caps she makes for him. Brendon supposes when you work at a pizza place, entertainment is probably in short supply. "So you don't mind?"

"Dude, have at it," Shane says, and waves a hand at the computer. "It's fine. Just don't steal people's credit card numbers or something. Not that you can. But don't try."

"Wasn't planning on it," Brendon says, entirely honestly, and then skims random entries until Shane goes into the backroom to grab more yeast for the dough. Brendon quickly clicks back over, pulling up his final delivery from last weekend.

SMITH, S , the entry says, all weird spaces and block lettering because their system is like, eight years old and probably still runs on DOS. Underneath it, there's a note that says LINKED ENTRY PRESS ENTER TO VIEW. Brendon presses enter. The second entry is the same address, but a different name (ROSS, R ,) and a different credit card on file. Brendon taps his finger on the mouse a little. He wonders briefly if they're just pseudonyms. Smith and Ross. It's very Bonnie and Clyde.

He's distracted by the merrily obnoxious jingle of the doorbell, someone coming into the shop to pick up their order. Shane's nowhere to be seen, so Brendon turns around and starts riffling on top of the stove, stretching up on his tiptoes to peer at order slips. "Afternoon," Brendon calls out behind him, "What's the name on the order?"

"Spencer," a voice says, and Brendon pauses for a split second, his hand hovering over three hot subs neatly wrapped up in plain brown bags. "Spencer, Spencer," Brendon mutters, scanning all of the slips. "Ah-ha! Got it." He tugs the sandwiches off the top and turns around.

"Oh shit," Brendon says, and nearly drops the sandwiches. Spencer—the clone guy—is taking off his sunglasses, pushing his hair away from his face as he places them on top of his head. A piece of hair is sticking out from behind his ear. He looks like he just rolled out of bed.

"Okay, so, large hot italian, everything on it, extra tomatoes, large chicken Parmesan, and a hot turkey, no mayo?" Brendon rambles, even though it's all written on the slip. He doesn't really have anything else to say that isn't _Dude, seriously, were you kidding? Are you secret agents? What are you doing in that house tell me tell me tell me!_ Plus, he's at work. He needs to at least fake the professionalism.

"Oh, hey," the guy says. He smiles at Brendon a little, nodding in obvious recognition. "What's up, man? Thanks for holding my beer the other night."

"Oh—uh, yeah," Brendon says. "You know. Part of the job."

"Right, right," Spencer says. "How much?"

"Um, one sec," Brendon says, and hurriedly clears the information from his screen. It's not like Spencer can see it, but it still feels weird. "Okay, 11.23, with the tax and everything."

"Oh, you know what," Spencer says. "Shit, I wanted to get sodas. Did you already ring it up?"

"It's fine," Brendon says, his hand hovering over the keyboard. He's still not super great at ringing people up. He taps a button hesitantly, then allows himself a little victorious head-shake when it works. "Okay, what, two Cokes and a Sprite?"

"Ginger ale," Spencer says. "If it matters."

"Not really," Brendon says, "Same price. But I approve of your life choices."

"Thanks," Spencer says, and smiles a little. He's got a great smile, the kind that lights up his whole face. Brendon's a little taken aback for a moment.

"So, um, yeah, it's going to be 15.67 with the drinks," Brendon mumbles, and watches as Spencer digs in his board shorts for his wallet, pulling out a handful of receipts with a surprised expression. Brendon can't figure him out. He looks like a totally normal college dude, not some secret operative. Maybe he's just a really good actor.

Spencer eventually finds his wallet, handing over his debit card with a rueful expression. "Sorry," he says. "I don't have enough cash on me."

"It's fine," Brendon says, and slides the card through. He takes a quick look at it while he's waiting, and stops, internally, for a second. It's American Express, entirely black. It's thicker than a normal credit card, the AMEX logo imprinted tastefully in silver foil.

Whoa.

Brendon resists the urge to take a picture of it on his phone and hands it back, even though it hasn't beeped back at him to say it's approved. It's an American Express Black. The card itself is probably worth more than Brendon's entire bank account.

"So, you in school?" Spencer says, while he's unscrewing the cap off the Ginger Ale, and Brendon looks up, surprised. "Yeah," he says, after a beat. "Community college, two jobs, you know how it is."

"Yeah," Spencer says sympathetically, and Brendon kind of wants to punch him in the face. Just a little bit. Fucking AMEX Black. Shit, Brendon can't even imagine having that kind of money.

"So what, you work here, and where else?" Spencer says, and Brendon answers before he really thinks about it, before he considers that maybe he shouldn't be telling the guy with the unlimited income and clones in his basement his life story. "I work down at the Smoothie Hut," Brendon says. "I make a mean Raspberry Tango."

"Oh yeah?" Spencer says, and smiles again. There's really no way he's older than Brendon. Twenty one, at the most. "What are you studying in school?"

"Uh, music," Brendon says, and rips off the reciept for him to sign. "I know, I know, spare me the lecture, but I love it." He grins to soften the impact of the statement, aware as he says it that sometimes he sounds like a dick. He's just _really_ sick of complete strangers telling him he needs to go into finance, or law, or something that will make money.

"No, dude," Spencer says. "No lecture here. That's awesome, man. I play drums." He winks at Brendon as he hands back the pen, and Brendon takes it, a little shell-shocked. "You should come by and jam some time."

"I, uh," Brendon fumbles. "What?"

"Come by, hang out," Spencer says. "You know. You seem like a cool dude." He shrugs. "We kind of just moved here, still don't really know anyone."

"We?" Brendon asks.

"Oh, me and Ryan," Spencer says. "Roommate. We're kind of a package deal, I should warn you. Hey, didn't you meet him?"

"I—yeah," Brendon says, thinking back. "Tall guy. Weird shoes." His stomach drops a little when Spencer says _package deal_ , which is kind of dumb, because Brendon's not even—whatever. So Spencer has a nice smile. He's obviously taken, and even if he wasn't, it shouldn't matter to Brendon.

"Anyway," Spencer says. He shrugs. "You know where we live. Come by sometime, if you want. I gotta run." He raises the hand with the sandwiches, gives an aborted wave as he walks out the door.

Brendon leans up against the cash register. It feels like he can't quite get a handle on the situation. He's having trouble reconciling hangover sandwich-runs and board shorts with suburbia and clones and unlimited credit cards.

[more]

—

Brendon waits a week. He doesn't want to seem too eager, even though it's practically the only thing he can think about.

(When Brendon was a little kid, he'd wallpapered his room with Seaquest posters, stuck glow-in-the-dark constellations up on his ceiling so he could pretend he was watching the night sky as he fell asleep. He'd had a disturbingly large collection of Transformers. Brendon just wants everything, wants it all, and he's been dreaming of the future for as long as he can remember. The idea that someone might have found it—might have tapped into a little piece of that science-fiction-fantasy future, in all its whirring, glorious complexity—makes his head spin.)

He taps his fingers on the steering wheel as he's leaving work, a nervous beat that has nothing in common with the song playing on the radio. He parks his car down the street from Spencer's house and changes in the back of his van, tugging off his bright-purple, moderately stained workshirt and khakis and replacing them with a pair of worn jeans and a red T-shirt. He kinds of wishes he brought something cooler to wear, but the washing machine in his building is broken and clean pants are in seriously short supply at the moment.

Brendon leaves his guitar in the backseat, just in case he's about to horribly embarrass himself. Making a quick exit while lugging a guitar case is kind of impossible.

He knocks on the door twice, shifting from side to side. It's almost entirely silent out here, in their little corner of suburbia. The neighborhood is empty in the middle of the afternoon, everyone at work or school, only a few cars scattered in driveways. A few houses down, an older man is watering the neatly-cultivated garden in the front yard and keeping up a running conversation with his small, fuzzy dog. Brendon feels a little out of place.

There's no answer after the third knock. Brendon turns around and heads back down towards the street, pushing down the feeling of disappointment that's suddenly lodged in his chest. He'll just try another time, right? Right.

He's almost to the curb when he hears a noise behind him, the sound of something heavy hitting the ground with a thick, painful-sounding thud. He spins around but there's nothing there; the same front door, still closed, with the same large picture windows, shades drawn. Brendon bites his lip, peering around the side of the house. There's a row of scrubby bushes underneath the side windows, blocking the view into the house. Brendon looks around once or twice, satisfies himself that there's no one around, and then creeps into the side of Spencer's yard.

(He's aware as he's doing it that there's really no excuse, that it's ill-considered and probably illegal. It's the kind of thing that's impossible to explain away, except—except if he's lucky, maybe he'll be able to see inside.)

The bushes are roughly as high as Brendon's shoulder. Brendon hunches down, slips in between two of them, and mutes a noise of surprise when one of the branches smacks into his glasses. There's no basement window, but there _are_ windows on the side of the house, the lower lip of the windowsill poking out just above Brendon's head. He can see that the shade is pulled up slightly, but from this angle he can't quite see into the house. Brendon hops a little bit, receives a tantalizing glimpse, and is just about to start hoisting himself up when he hears someone clear their throat.

He freezes, hands on the windowsill, swallowing firmly. He has the feeling his day is about to get a lot shittier. Maybe he'll at least get to ride in the front seat of the squad car.

"Hey," a voice says, and the tone is so mellow, so unexpected, that Brendon immediately turns and stares. It belongs to a short, bearded guy, who is standing on the back porch and peering around the side of the house. He tilts his head at Brendon. "What's up?"

"Listen, I can explain," Brendon says, wondering how the hell he's going to. "I swear to god, just give me five minutes, I'll tell you everything, please don't call the cops—"

The guy on the porch looks back at him for a long second, and then, of all things, he snorts with laughter. He leans on the side railing, dangling his beer in one hand. "I'm not going to call the cops," the guy says. "Dude. _So_ not how we work here."

"How—how do you work?" Brendon says quickly, feeling entirely out of his depth. It occurs to him that someone with unlimited amounts of money could probably afford to hire to bodyguard; this guy doesn't seem like one, but what if he's a secret martial arts master? Oh, god. That's almost worse than the cops. Brendon really doesn't have the money for a hospital trip. "Please don't—I'll leave right now, see? Totally leaving—" He steps away from the window, holding his hands up.

"Well, first I was going to offer you a beer," the guy says, shrugging. "I"m Jon, by the way. In case you forgot."

"Brendon," Brendon says, and wonders what the hell Jon's talking about. Jon definitely hadn't said his name before, unless Brendon had just been too busy creepily stalking his friends to notice.

"Hi, Brendon-in-the-bushes," Jon says. He reaches over, out of Brendon's view, and drags an ashtray towards him along the railing. "Find anything interesting down there?"

"No," Brendon says. "Uh. Not really. Ha-ha. What could possibly be interesting down here?" His voice cracks.

"That sucks," Jon says conversationally, as he's lazily lighting what looks like the tail-end of a joint, sucking on it occasionally until it starts hitting. "I thought maybe you'd found something neat."

"Not yet, no," Brendon says. He's still holding his hands up. He tries to back away and trips over a bush. "Um. Are you like. You're not pissed?"

"Nah," Jon says, shrugging. He holds out the joint to Brendon. "You want a hit?"

"I'm good," Brendon says. He wipes his sweaty palms off on his jeans. "I think I'm just going to—yeah. I should get going."

"Come on dude, stay and have a beer," Jon says. "Spencer's down in the basement, with Ryan. Come in and say hi."

"Yes," Brendon says immediately. "I mean—no. Yes. Shit." He doesn't know which is better, admitting he knows Spencer or pretending he knows nothing about the situation.

"Come on up," Jon says, and then disappears. Brendon doesn't know what else to do, so he makes his way out of the bushes and heads up onto the elevated porch. Jon's barefoot, and digging in a cooler tucked in next to an old barbecue grill. He straightens up, and hands Brendon a beer with a grimace. "Sorry," he says. "I think we drank all the good stuff. It's just Miller Lite."

"That's uh, fine," Brendon says. He tries to remember if Miller Lite has twist-off caps, but he's saved by Jon making an OH! face and pulling it gently out of Brendon's hands, popping the cap off with his lighter. "My bad," Jon says easily. "So. Brendon. Shall we go inside and see what the damage is?"

"I—okay," Brendon says hesitantly. He has no idea what the hell is going on, but it seems like too good of an opportunity to pass up. It's what he came for, right?

He follows Jon into the house through the sliding screen door. It's not a huge house; it's a little messy, but nothing out of the ordinary. The strangest thing is the thick curtains over every window. They're paisley.

"Ryan," Jon says with a shrug, when he notices Brendon looking. "Sometimes it's just best not to argue. He has really strong opinions about fabric. They're fucking ugly, right?" He shakes his head with a little smile.

"Uh—yeah, they kind of are," Brendon admits. He was planning on being polite, but he can't really lie. They're hideous.

As they're standing in the entrance to the living room, there's another loud _clang_ from below them. Brendon jumps, startled by the amount of vibration coming from below his feet. It feels as though the whole house has momentarily shaken on its foundation.

Jon snorts to himself. "Must be something exciting," he says. "Come on, let's go see what they're doing down there."

"Is it—safe?" Brendon asks. Now that he's here, the reality of the situation is starting to intrude on him. He doesn't know these guys. There could be _anything_ down there.

"Today it is," Jon says. "Come on, dude. I'd tell you if it wasn't."

"When you say that," Brendon continues, following slowly behind Jon as he turns and walks down a hallway. "You mean that some days it's not safe? How do you know?"

"Oh, Ryan tells me," Jon says airily. "Although I don't know why he bothers. I can usually figure it out."

"From the loud noises?" Brendon guesses. Jon pauses at the entrance to a set of stairs leading down. "No, from here," Jon says, and taps his head. "Psychic, you know how it goes."

"No?" Brendon says. "I uh, really don't." He's starting to wonder if everyone in this house is just flat-out insane. Really wealthy, but insane. It could happen.

"Okay, look," Jon says. "You're right. I shouldn't say that. I'm only mildly psychic."

"Isn't that like being a little bit pregnant?" Brendon says.

"Exactly!" Jon beams. He holds open the door to the basement. "After you, dude."

"But you can't be—never mind," Brendon says. "Okay."

The stairs look like every other set of basement stairs he's ever seen; they're haphazardly carpeted with what looks like carpet samples, and there's a single, hanging bulb illuminating their descent. They make a sharp turn to the left at a landing, and beyond that Brendon can't see anything. He takes a deep breath and starts down the stairs, brushing a stray cobweb or two out of his face.

"Sorry about the spiders," Jon says from behind him. "Ryan likes them. He says they give the place atmosphere."

"Uh-huh," Brendon says. He pauses on the landing for a moment, screws up his courage, and then heads farther down. There's a _lot_ of stairs.

The stairs end abruptly—and anticlimactically—in a tiny, bare room the size of a closet. There's a door at one end, a normal, wooden door with a fake brass knob. Jon knocks on it twice, and then presses his hand into the door. Brendon stares. It looks like real wood, but it can't be, because when Jon steps away the image of his hand remains _in the door_ , surround by a faint light.

"Your turn," Jon says cheerfully. He gestures towards the door. Brendon steps forward. He swallows hard, and then places his hand against the surface of the door. It doesn't feel any different, but when he steps away his hand print is burned into the wood, the same as Jon's.

"Jon Walker and Brendon Urie, requesting permission to enter," a clipped British voice says from somewhere above them. Brendon whirls around, but there's no one there.

In front of them, the door swings open. Spencer's face peeks out from behind it. "You're such a dick," is the first thing he says, and Brendon's heart speeds up for a moment when he realizes the comment is directed at Jon. "You knew it was open, you show-off."

"It's a _talking door_ ," Jon says, grinning. He ushers Brendon in front of him. "Come on, Brendon's never seen it. And it's cool every time, dude."

"You're so stoned," Spencer says, with a faint trace of both jealousy and recrimination in his voice. He turns to Brendon. "Hey, Brendon. Sorry you had to put up with this loser."

"It's okay," Brendon says faintly. He's too busy staring to come up with anything interesting to say.

As a kid, Brendon had always wanted his own secret laboratory, along with a ray gun, and a pet Tribble, and possibly the Millennium Falcon. In his head he'd imagined it gleaming from every surface, a great mass of stainless steel and neon lights and things bubbling in test tubes.

Ryan and Spencer's lab is, if possible, the exact opposite of what he'd always imagined.

It looks like a junk shop; every surface is piled high with _things,_ none of which seem to have any connection to each other. On a small table next to Brendon's right hand, there's a stack of printouts, an incense burner, an accordion, half of a glass juicer, six screws, the right leg of a doll, fifteen unidentifiable wires and bits of metal, and a can of dog food. When he looks up, there's a small hanging lantern just above his head, keeping company with a gutted air conditioner, an orange umbrella, and a wooden broom that's strapped to the ceiling.

It's a gigantic, glorious mess. Brendon falls in love immediately.

"This is _so cool_ ," Brendon gasps, all thoughts of personal safety and possible insanity forgotten. "Dude. _Dude._ "

"Thanks," Spencer smiles at him. "Don't tell anyone about it or we'll have to kill you."

"No seriously, it's—wait, what?" Brendon says.

"Kidding," Spencer says lightly, in that way that means he's not kidding at all. "Anyway, we're kind of working on something right now? I don't think we'll have time to jam." He looks mildly disappointed. "But feel free to stay and hang out, you know. I should have given you my number or something. I feel bad for making you come all the way out here."

"Uh, okay," Brendon says. "It's fine, really." It's more than fine. It's the coolest thing Brendon's ever seen, even if the threat of certain death is now hanging over his head. He just wants to touch everything. "Is there—anything I shouldn't touch?"

"That," Spencer says, pointing to a large black box in the center of the room. It seems to be the source of the earlier noises, if the thumps and bangs emanating from inside are any indication. Brendon peers around Spencer and sees a pair of long, skinny legs sticking out of the side of it. There's a muffled curse from deep inside the box.

"Sure, okay," Brendon says, nodding. He really wants to ask what Ryan's doing in there, but he doesn't want to press his luck.

Brendon walks down the side of the room instead, staring at the vast assortment of things clustered on every surface. He stops in front of a folding coffee table; there's a large tangle of wires, a doll with only three limbs, and a small purple box roughly half the size of a shoe box. Brendon turns around, but Jon's sitting in a sagging armchair with stuffing poking out from the side, picking at a tiny ukulele, and Spencer's perched on the side of the chair. Neither of them are paying him the slightest bit of attention—which is _weird_ , okay, because they don't know Brendon at all and yet they're acting like it's no big deal that he's here—so Brendon picks up the box.

The metal box fits nicely into his hands; it looks as though it's been lacquered, judging from the slight chipping near the top corner. There's two buttons on the top of the box.

Brendon looks up again, considering, and then he thinks _oh well!_ and presses the top button.

Nothing happens.

It's definitely anti-climactic. Brendon lets out the breath he was holding; he places the box back on the table with a tiny sigh, and then turns around and nearly falls over, because Spencer is standing _right behind him._

Or rather, _one_ Spencer is standing right behind him.

"Urk," Brendon says, and clutches futilely behind him for the table. "Shit. Shitshitshit—"

The Spencer in front of him cocks his head and raises an eyebrow, but he doesn't speak. He looks mildly concerned, but other than that there's absolutely no expression to his movements. It's kind of creepy.

"Oh, damn," a voice sighs, from somewhere near Brendon's left elbow. He whips his head around and the other Spencer—the _real_ Spencer—is standing next to him. Except how does Brendon know that this is the real Spencer? His head is starting to hurt.

"I probably should have told you not to touch that," a Spencer says. "But that's okay." Brendon looks at the Spencer in front of him; he's wearing a dress suit and tie, like he's on his way to a high-society gala.

The Spencer next to Brendon picks up the small purple box, and presses the second button. Brendon blinks—it _feels_ like he blinks, even though Brendon's not sure he actually closed his eyes—and then the other Spencer is gone.

"I knew it," Brendon says, a little shakily. "I totally called this, I did, holy crap, you have a _clone_ —" He snaps his mouth shut when he realizes that maybe telling Spencer he knows all about his evil plans isn't such a great idea.

Spencer stares at him for a long moment, and then bursts out laughing, sharp and sweet. There's no malice in it.

"Oh man, I wish," Spencer says, popping open a side panel on the box and fiddling around with a control panel. "I was totally fucking with you. Ryan's been trying to figure that one out for _years_. But no—that's just a, I guess you would call it a hologram?"

"It's not a hologram," Ryan calls out, from inside his box. "Holograms don't require the bending of light waves in order to produce the illusion of—"

"Yeah, yeah, we know," Spencer says, cutting him off. "Come up with a better name for it, and we'll use it."

"I did," Ryan calls back. "It's a Multi-Particle—"

"That was _not_ a better name," Jon puts in, from his corner. He strums a C7 chord for extra emphasis. "That was the worst name I'd ever heard, Ryan."

"Everyone's a critic," Ryan mumbles. He shuffles backwards out of the black box, and Brendon's suddenly staring down at Ryan's tousled head and wide eyes. There's a smudge of dirt on his cheek. "Hey, Brendon," Ryan says, smiling at him a little. "It's been a while."

"Yes?" Brendon says uncertainly. It's been like, a week since he delivered pizza here. Maybe two, at the outset.

"I wasn't sure if it was you, before," Ryan says, while he's digging in a cardboard box filled with unidentifiable parts. "You're a little early."

"Uh-huh," Brendon says. "Right. Uh. Nope, still just—me. Brendon."

"Exactly," Ryan says, and sticks his head back in the box. Brendon shakes his head a little to clear it. He suspects he and Ryan just had two totally separate conversations, passing each other like ships in the night.

"Oh, hey," Spencer says. "Come here, I wanted to show you something." He waves Brendon along towards the back of the room, towards a workbench piled high with assorted objects. "Check it out," Spencer says, picking up what looks, for all intents and purposes, like a large fork. "Cool, huh?"

"It's a very nice fork," Brendon says, politely.

"Man, I missed you," Spencer says, laughing. "Here, try it out." He hands Brendon the fork; as soon as it touches Brendon's fingers, Brendon's aware of a humming passing through his hand and up into his body. It feels like the air is suddenly vibrating around him. "Whoa," Brendon says. The feeling is oddly familiar. Brendon frowns. "What—what does it do?"

Spencer grins at him. "Catch," he says, and picks up a tennis ball from the table. Brendon reaches out to catch it with his other hand, instinctively, but before the ball actually touches his palm it stops, hovering in mid air. Brendon can feel his mouth dropping open.

"Neat, huh?" Spencer says. "I have no idea what we're going to do with it. But it's fucking _cool._ "

"I told you," Jon puts in, from the other side of the room. "We need to make three more. Ultimate Frisbee would be _so_ ultimate with that thing."

"Yeah," Brendon says softly. It feels like his head is spinning; everything is so new and different and strange. But underneath that there's an old echo somewhere in his bones, a feeling of familiarity so strong it's almost uncanny. Brendon moves his hand, and the ball moves with it, hovering just above his reach.

There's a large _clunk_ behind him, and Brendon turns around to see Ryan pulling himself out of the box. He stands up, brushing fussily at a smear of dirt on his knee. "I think we're set," Ryan says. "You guys want to go for a ride?"

"Oh, hell yes," Jon says, bouncing up from his place on the chair and laying the ukulele carefully to one side. "You know I do, dude."

"Really?" Spencer says, skeptically. "Are you sure you fixed the—"

"Nope," Ryan says. "But I'm pretty sure. Mostly. There's only one way to find out."

Ryan fumbles in the cardboard box next to him, pulling out a crumpled fedora. He smooths the feather out carefully and places it on his head, and then gives Spencer a meaningful look. "Ready when you are," he says, and then leans down and crawls into the box.

Brendon frowns. The black box probably comes up to his waist, at the most. It looks like it should be a tight fit for Ryan, but then Jon follows him in, and—there's just no way. It's impossible.

Spencer reaches out and gently pulls the fork out of Brendon's hand, setting it down on the workbench. He walks over to the box and peers inside, shaking his head with what looks like long-suffering fondness. He starts to climb in, and then turns to look back at Brendon. "You coming?" Spencer says, and there's something about the tone of his voice that's almost hopeful.

"Uh," Brendon fumbles, and then Spencer is gone, too. Brendon can hear their voices, muffled and indistinct, through the metal. He checks his watch; it's 3:52 PM. He doesn't have anything to do tonight, except study for class. He can't believe he's even considering this.

Brendon stands there for a moment, wondering what the hell he's thinking. Part of him suspects he's going crazy. Maybe there's something in the air.

Brendon bites his lip.

"Come on!" someone says, from inside. "We'll leave without you, dude. We don't want to, but we will."

Brendon takes a deep breath, and then he closes his eyes and crawls into the box.

—

Brendon's science fiction dreams were always filled with strange, fantastic creatures; daring escapes and narrow rescues, stories of honor and glory and love. Starships piloted by enslaved crews sailed off into the darkness of space, only to be liberated by a dashing, mysterious hero. War-scarred men with grim faces plotted unseen revolutions; worlds were won and lost; whole star systems perished in the furnaces of a thousand suns, only to be brought back by a surprising loophole, the magic of space and time.

It's never that easy.

—

Brendon wakes up on the floor. His first thought is that, as floors go, it's rather comfortable.

The carpet is mauve.

Then he raises his head, and realizes his head hurts like a bitch. Brendon winces and brings a hand up to his forehead. It comes away warm and wet.

"Hey, hey," Someone says next to his right elbow. "Brendon. You okay?"

"I—" Brendon says. "Yes?"

"Good," the someone says. Brendon turns his head—although not without some serious protesting from the rest of his body—and sees that the voice belongs to Spencer. He's also lying on the floor.

"You've got a," Spencer says, and gestures to Brendon's face.

"Yeah, I know," Brendon says. He prods gently at the cut, but as far as he can tell, it's not very deep. Head wounds always bleed a lot, even when they're shallow. Brendon wishes he didn't know that from personal experience, but that would entail forgetting his entire childhood. To call Brendon "clumsy" would be something of an understatement.

"So," Spencer says calmly. "If you're okay, and you're not going to bleed to death, could I ask your help with something?"

"Sure," Brendon says. He's opening his mouth to ask about the others, when Spencer says, "I'm going to need you to help me move my leg. I'm pretty sure it's broken."

" _Shit_ ," Brendon says. He knows exactly how much that hurts. "Okay, okay, just, um, stay still—"

"No, it's fine," Spencer says. "Just help me sit up, okay?"

"Right," Brendon agrees. He sits up, wiping his face off with the back of his hand, and then helps Spencer up, guiding his body into a sitting position. Spencer hisses through his teeth and winces. He's sweating a little, but otherwise he's utterly composed.

"Hurts?" Brendon says sympathetically.

"Like a bitch," Spencer agrees."Now we wait."

"Uh," Brendon says. "For?" He looks around, for the first time since he opened his eyes. They're in a small room.

A small, horribly decorated room.

Next to him, on his right, there's a minuscule loveseat tucked into the corner. A row of hooks lie along the wall behind the couch; they're filled with assorted bags and backpacks, each a different type of nondescript carry-all. Along the far wall, there's a row of lockers, next to a tiny two-burner hot plate with a silvery kettle. A third wall holds a wooden door, along with several shelves filled with odds and ends.

The final wall is entirely empty.

It's as if Brendon stepped into a tiny apartment—circa 1962—that ends abruptly in outer space. The wall is black, overwhelmingingly so, the kind of black that seems to suck the light out of the rest of the room. It makes his head hurt to look at it too long.

"Ryan and Jon," Spencer says. "They'll be here soon." As if they're responding to Spencer's cue, both of them suddenly stumble through the black wall, landing on their hands and knees.

Everyone starts talking at once.

"I knew you'd end up in the engine room again. You always do."

"Spencer, your leg—"

"It will be fine, it happened before, remember—"

"Jon said he doesn't have any idea—"

"Don't be an idiot, martyrdom gets you nowhere—"

"Okay," Brendon says loudly, unable to hold it in any longer. He stands up, swaying unsteadily on his feet. "Okay. _What the fuck is going on_?" The noise abruptly ceases. Brendon feels three pairs of eyes turn to him, looking as though they had utterly forgotten that he was there.

"Oh," Ryan says, frowning a little. "Right."

"Yes," Brendon says. "Right. I am here, with you, and we seem to be in a closet, and I would like some fucking answers, please."

"Sorry, I keep forgetting," Ryan says. He looks chastened. "We're in Prudence. You really don't remember?"

"Where is Prudence?" Brendon says, trying to keep his voice level. Now that the head trauma is wearing off—and gee, that's a reassuring thought—he's realizing that he has absolutely no idea what's going on. He can feel a wave of panic start to rise up in his chest. "Is that a town?"

"This is Prudence," Ryan says fondly, placing a gentle hand on the wall. "She's a little cranky at the moment, but she'll warm up to you."

"She's a little _broken_ at the moment," Jon says. He sighs. "I really didn't mean for that to happen," Jon says, turning to Brendon. "I really thought Ryan had gotten it right this time."

"This room." Brendon says, and then he can't get any farther. It feels like everything is all jumbled up inside. He tries again, speaking slowly and clearly, because that feels like the best way to communicate his complete and utter confusion. "We are in a room. And her—it's name is Prudence?"

"Okay," Spencer says suddenly. "Okay, I'm tired of this shit. Ryan. Tell him."

"You tell him," Ryan says. He shakes his head. "What if he—you tell him."

Spencer turns to Jon. "Jon?" he says. "Please?"

"I can't," Jon says, looking miserable. "You know I can't, I'm not allowed—"

"Tell me what?" Brendon says.

Spencer looks at him for a long moment. He opens his mouth to speak; at the exact moment, Brendon feels the floor give way. It pitches him forward and then backwards, as though they're suddenly in the middle of an ocean storm. He throws out his hands to catch himself, but it's too late. He feels his body falling backwards, and then—

—and then, for a few moments, everything is very, very silent.

Brendon blinks, and then he gasps. He's staring down at a mass of stars, their tiny lights blinking fitfully in the depth of space. They're covered with a faint red haze, a trailing miasma of dust and rock sparkling in the far-away sun.

Brendon blinks again, and then he's pitched forward onto a floor. It's very cold, and very made of metal.

"Ow," Brendon moans out. "The fuck?"

"Okay, it's okay," someone says from behind him. He feels strong arms picking him up and setting him on his feet. "If it makes you feel any better, I still do that," Jon says sympathetically. "Gravity is a bitch."

"Sure," Brendon stays unsteadily. He's too busy looking around. He's in what looks like a room full of abandoned machinery, all of it blinking and bubbling away despite the rust.

"Welcome to the engine room," Jon says grandly, waving an arm. "You like?"

"I—have no idea yet," Brendon says. "This thing isn't safe, is it."

"It's a work in progress," Ryan says, from behind him. He's standing up and brushing his knees off, obviously having landed a little unsteadily behind them. "Sorry about the portal. I still haven't figure that one out yet."

"Which is that thing," Brendon guesses, pointing over Ryan's shoulder to the towering wall of black.

"Exactly!" Ryan says, beaming at him. "Prudence is a little—well—she's a little _large_ for this universe. In a manner of speaking."

"So we just sort of moved her outside," Jon says, fiddling with something on the wall. "Parts of her, anyway."

"We're—" Brendon says, and then he has to sit down. He wants to point out that they're all obviously insane—because this just _isn't possible_ —except. Except he'd seen it, hadn't he? Brendon closes his eyes and he can still feel the sensation of weightlessness, the sense of floating high above the limits of space. He's suddenly certain he's going to throw up.

"Whoa, whoa, hey," Jon says, rushing over to where Brendon has his head between his knees. "Focus on the floor, okay? It's not moving. We're not moving. This is just like being on the ground."

"Sure," Brendon mutters weakly. "The _ground._ " He feels a nudging at his elbow, and he looks up to see Ryan handing him a plastic cup of something that looks like water. "Drink," Ryan says. "I promise, it will help." Brendon gives him a disbelieving look, but he eventually takes the cup and drinks it down. The liquid is cool and faintly sweet on his tongue.

"So this is what you were going to tell me," Brendon says eventually. "We're in a fucking—I don't even know what this is, and maybe we're outside the known universe and maybe we're not, and—Jesus, you could definitely have warned me." He watches as Ryan and Jon share a look, something knowing and almost sad passing between them. Ryan shakes his head once, almost imperceptibly, and then Jon turns back to Brendon.

"Yeah," Jon says eventually. "That's it. Sorry to just sort of throw you in unawares, but I didn't expect we'd crash."

"Me neither," Ryan says, grimacing. "Prudence isn't even speaking to me right now. She told me to fuck off."

"She talks?" Brendon says.

"Yes and no," Ryan says. He snaps his fingers, and a keyboard and screen materializes in front of his hands, shimmering with a pale green light. He frowns for a moment and then types in,

 _I'm still really sorry we broke you. forgive me?_

Brendon watches as Prudence's reply scrolls across the screen. _That's nice. Go to hell._

"Ouch," Jon says, wincing. Ryan sighs, and types back, _can you at least tell me what's wrong?_

There's a long pause. Ryan taps his fingers on the keys impatiently, and he's just about to turn away when the screen is suddenly filled with numbers and letters, scrolling so fast Brendon can barely read them.

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me," Ryan mutters, starting to look annoyed. "Seriously, Prudence?"

"What are those?" Brendon asks.

"Those are failure logs," Jon says, shaking his head. "Normally she collates them for us, because they're far too much data for us to handle. She's sending them to Ryan in the raw, in the base code. We can't do anything with them like this."

Brendon frowns, peering closer at the screen. "Tell her to slow down," he says. "Can you do that?"

"I can try," Ryan says. He types something in, entering in two different passwords, and the screen slows to a normal speed. Brendon blinks. "What do you mean, it's in code?" he says. "I can read it just fine."

"Read some of it out loud for me," Ryan says slowly. "What does it say?"

"Um," Brendon says. "Well, this part is talking about how the ion fuel pumps blew. It says you have a failure in the level 10 circuitry, although fuck if I know what that means. Oh, and here, something about a, a gasket, maybe? Yeah. That definitely says gasket." The words swim faintly in front of Brendon's eyes.

Ryan swallows and looks at Brendon through the screen. He looks quietly hopeful. "Brendon," he says quietly. "Have you ever seen anything like this before? Try to remember."

"No?" Brendon says. "It's just—I can't explain it, but I mean, it's right there. You guys really can't read it?"

"Nope," Jon says. "To me it just looks like a bunch of numbers and symbols. It's complete nonsense."

"Oh," Brendon says. He sits back on his heels. "Um."

Ryan mutters something under his breath, something that sounds suspiciously like _he always was her favorite._ "I think we need to try something," Ryan says. "Jon, you go check on Spencer, okay? Brendon, come with me." He motions Brendon to get up, standing up himself with all the grace of a baby giraffe. Brendon follows as Ryan heads deeper into the room, through a twisting passageway comprised of the tiny space between various tubes, barrels, knobs and dials. It seems like they walk for a long time, but when Brendon checks his watch, it's still 3:52 PM.

"Here," Ryan says finally, coming to a stop in front of what looks for all the world like a gigantic, see-through Rubix cube. Brendon almost laughs, but that laughter soon dies away when Ryan steps forward and waves his hand over the top. Brendon watches in astonishment as the cube gently lifts itself up, floating apart to hang, perfectly spaced, in mid-air.

"Reach out your hand," Ryan says quietly, drawing his hand back. "If I'm right, she'll recognize you."

"Who?" Brendon says.

"Prudence," Ryan says.

"But I've never—"

"Just try it," Ryan coaxes, looking at Brendon with pleading eyes. Brendon wants to point out that this is completely impossible, but then, everything he's seen so far today has been equally impossible.

Brendon reaches out his hand. At first he's convinced nothing is happening; the cubes continue to glow with a faint light of their own, hanging perfectly still in midair. Then Brendon's aware of a light at the edges of his vision, growing steadily brighter until it's all he can see. His body feels weightless; the pain from his various aches and bruises starts to melt away.

 _Hello Brendon,_ a child's voice says, in the last instant before everything whites out completely. _Welcome home._

—-

When Brendon opens his eyes, the first thing he sees is Ryan's face hovering over him, his expression a mixture of confusion and horror.

"Ross," Brendon mumbles, and slaps a hand out. He scores a direct hit, from the sound of it. "Get out of my _face_. Ow, Prudence, what the hell did you do?"

 _Nothing_ , Prudence says, somewhere inside his head. _I just brought you back, that's all. No need to thank me._

"Thank you," Brendon says, attempting to sit up. "Did you have to leave me on the floor?"

 _It happens,_ Prudence replies. _How are you feeling?_

"Like I got hit by a truck," Brendon says. He manages to sit upright, and groans. It feels like a thousand elephants are parading around in his skull.

"I can't believe you just hit me in the face," Ryan says. He rubs fussily at his cheek, and then settles his hat more firmly on his head. "I bust my ass for you, and this is the thanks I get?"

"Why are we in the engine room?" Brendon says, looking around. "Did something go wrong with Prudence?"

"Uh," Ryan says. "Define 'wrong.'"

Brendon looks at Ryan for a long moment. "You crashed her," Brendon says. "Again."

"Jon crashed her," Ryan says, looking strangely guilty. "I was just. Nearby at the time. With my hand on the engine controls. But—dammit, Brendon, that's not the point. We were distracted."

"By what?" Brendon says, attempting to get himself upright. It hurts.

"You, dumbass," Ryan says. "Seriously, do you know how long it took to find you? Out of all the alternate universes—"

Brendon blinks. And then he thinks, _oh, not again._

"Huh," he says, eventually, at some point after Ryan's finally finished his spiel. "I was a pizza delivery boy in this one? Weird."

"And you had a crush on Spencer," Ryan says, hiding a smile. "It was really obvious. Jon and I made fun of you behind your back."

"At least it wasn't you," Brendon says, wrinkling his nose. "That was a bad one."

Ryan frowns. "You said you can never remember them," he says, his voice going tight around the edges. "Wait. You said—"

"Spencer told me," Brendon says, grimacing. Spencer had told him in explicit detail, actually, with a strange sort of malicious glee. Brendon had been a lovesick teenage fan, and Ryan had been the star of a short-lived but well-received holo-drama about the pains of growing up. It had been doomed from the start.

"Yeah," Ryan said, looking away. "Well." Brendon frowned—it looked like Ryan might be blushing?—but no, it was just the light. Weird.

 _Brendon_ , Prudence says, somewhere inside his head. _As fascinating as I'm sure Ryan is, you might want to check on Spencer. He feels...strange._

"Crap," Brendon says, out loud. "Ryan. Where's Spencer? Prudence just said we need to go check on him."

"Main Room," Ryan says immediately. "Come on." He hurries down the hallway, and Brendon follows him. God, he can't believe it's happened _again._ Brendon is starting to get seriously frustrated with his gene pool.

Ryan skids to a stop in front of the portal, pitching forward into the blackness with a surprised yelp. Brendon bites his lip to keep from laughing, and follows Ryan through. He doesn't recognize the universe below him, which means he's been gone at least two weeks in this timeline.

"Dammit, Spencer," Brendon says sadly, when he's finally through. " _Again_?"

"Look," Spencer says. "It's not my fault. You know that. We all have our talents."

"Yes," Brendon says patiently. "And my best friend just _happens_ to have a talent for upsetting the order of the universe."

"And re-ordering it," Spencer says. "Don't forget about that part."

"I think his God complex is getting worse," Jon stage-whispers. Spencer hits him. Then he looks up at Brendon. "So you're back?" Spencer says. "Heya."

"I'm back," Brendon says. He thinks for a minute about what Ryan had said, about him-and-Spencer in this newest universe. "Sorry, if I, uh. Did anything inappropriate."

"You really didn't," Spencer says. "You just kind of stalked me. You were like seventeen. It was cute."

"Oh, well," Brendon says. "I stalk you anyway. That's normal. You're just so irresistible, I can't help it."

"Very true," Spencer says. "So are you guys going to help me up, or not?"

"All healed?" Brendon says. He reaches out a hand to Spencer, and Spencer grips it and pulls himself up. "Yup," Spencer says. He shakes his leg out a little. "That was a nasty one. Took at least twenty minutes to fix."

"You are so spoiled," Ryan puts in from the corner. "I wish Prudence only took twenty minutes to fix."

**Author's Note:**

> This ends in kind of a strange place, so to make things a little clearer: each of them has their own particular odd talent, which is both a blessing and a curse. Brendon's is tripping over wormholes, so that he literally sometimes wakes up in a different timeline and with a different life. When this happens, everyone has to go back and find him in whichever timeline he is in.


End file.
